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The Prisoner in His Palace
The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid | Will Bardenwerper
5 posts | 5 read | 5 to read
A book that, in the haunting tradition of In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song, lifts away the top layer of evil and finds complexity beneath, this is the bizarre tale of twelve young American soldiers who are deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2006. Rather than fight the enemy in combat, the men are unexpectedly assigned to guard the country’s notorious leader—Saddam Hussein—in the months leading to his execution. Living alongside, and caring for, their “high value detainee” in a former palace dubbed The Rock and regularly transporting him to his raucous trial, many of the men begin questioning some of their most basic assumptions. Thoroughly researched and provocative, The Prisoner in His Palace contrasts two very different Saddams: the defiant, younger man who uses torture and murder as tools, and the older man who proves affectionate, charming, and unexpectedly courageous in the face of looming death. In this artfully constructed narrative, Saddam, the “man without a conscience,” manages to get everyone around him to examine theirs. Many of those who bid goodbye to Saddam will be forever changed by the experience, and we wonder if we ourselves will.
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KelseyCB
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A story needing to be told. A disturbing look into the trial and execution. No matter how bad a person, there is humanity to be found. The impact this had on the men who guarded and got to know him is gut-wrenching: the complexity of the human spirit and how our soldiers are harmed by war in expected and unexpected ways. If you can read this book without shedding a tear for Hussein and the men with him in his final days, you have a hard heart.

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booklover76
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Sounds a lot like Trump.

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booklover76
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Somehow I can't picture Saddam listening to Blige.

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MallenNC
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This isn't a typical book choice for me, but I heard the author interviewed on NPR and immediately added it to my TBR. It is a quick read, just over 200 pages, but it gave me a lot to think about. How could one of the world's most notorious dictators be someone with whom his American guards could build a compassionate, caring relationship? It says a lot about human relationships.

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